


kiss of life

by jeeno2



Series: Reylo One-Shots [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bendemption, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Kissing, The Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-14 00:48:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18042260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: Even when Ben was lost to the dark, he never stopped hoping his death, when it inevitably came, would be a good one.





	kiss of life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obiwanheda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obiwanheda/gifts).



> I wrote this fic for obiwanheda and her absolutely [gorgeous art](https://bb-8.tumblr.com/post/181617106010/there-is-passion-yet-peace-my-contribution-for) that she created for the Reylo Charity Anthology. 
> 
> C, I hope this fic does your headcanons for your beautiful artwork justice!

i.

When the blaster shot hits Ben Solo from across the battlefield, Rey feels the blow low in her gut, a phantom injury that hits her so hard she doubles over in pain and loses her balance.

It isn’t until she looks up and sees him crumple to the ground, face contorted in agony, that she realizes _he_ was the one who was shot. Not her.

“No!” she screams. “ _No!”_ She cannot lose him now. Not after everything they’ve been through. Not after a lifetime of losing everything and everyone she has ever loved. But no one can hear her. The battle around them is too loud, the moans and the shouts of the people fighting and dying here all but swallowed up by the deafening blasts of the First Order’s cannons.

Ignoring the Resistance fighters yelling at her to take cover, Rey runs as fast as she can to where he lies, on the other side of the barricade the Resistance set up to hold the perimeter.

She throws herself to the ground beside him.

His Force signature is already fading. His beautiful dark eyes are closed. But when Rey presses two trembling fingers to the side of his throat she feels the pulse of his heartbeat. It’s weak— _too_ weak—but it’s steady. And it seems to be holding for now.

With a strength Rey did not know she had, she manages to drag him from the battle and off to the side, where the fighting is lighter.

 

ii.

Ben blinks his eyes open with the last of his strength.

It’s quiet here. Very quiet. Rey must have brought him someplace safe. He is only dimly aware of her presence, of the way she hovers over his prone body. Her hands worry at his hands, at the sleeves of his tunic. At the torn and bloodied fabric of his ruined shirt.

Her face is mere inches away from his as she examines his injuries. He wants, desperately, in these final moments, to close the short distance between them and kiss her at last. He wants to wrap his arms around her and pull her close, just as he’s ached to do from the first moment he saw her, back when everything inside him was still twisted and dark.

He needs to tell her that he’s clawed his way back to the light.

Back to her.

He cannot die here, in the place where his grandfather fell, without her knowing.

But the simple act of breathing takes everything he has left. His mouth cannot form words. The arms that yearn to hold her are useless to him, lying limp at his sides. His eyes flutter closed as he tries to commit the details of Rey’s beautiful face to what remains of his memory.

Distantly, he hears her say something. She is sniffling. Sobbing. Sobbing for _him._

And then—

Rey’s lips are rough, chapped when she presses them to his, and he can taste the strange mixture of their sweat and her tears on his tongue. But none of that matters to him now, because she is kissing him at last. At _last._

He is soaring.

 

iii.

Rey kisses Ben for what feels like seconds. Minutes. Hours.

She pours everything they’ve left unsaid into her kisses. She presses _I missed you_ and _you came back_ , over and over again, onto his flushed cheeks. She breathes _I want you_ , and _I love you more than anything_ against his lips. The war is all but over, all of this is _so close_ to being over, and it isn’t fair that he should be ripped away from her now, just as everything was about to begin.

But they have this moment. And she has no intention of wasting it.

His lips are soft and pliant against hers. And warm. Everything about him has always been so _warm_. Ben opens his mouth beneath hers and she whimpers, tasting the seam of his lips as she wraps her arms more tightly around his body.

He struggles, tries to lift his head—possibly to kiss her back—but it’s too much for him. His head falls back to the ground on a quiet groan.

“Rest,” she murmurs against his mouth. _Gods_ , she loves his beautiful mouth. He sighs quietly and, unable to help herself, Rey presses more kisses to lips. He sighs again; her heart clenches painfully in her chest. “I’ll go get help.”

But she stays where she is, watching him breathe, unwilling and unable to leave his side.

 

iv.

Even when Ben was lost to the dark, he never stopped hoping his death, when it inevitably came, would be a good one.

He’d always imagined—hoped—he would die bravely. He hoped he would be remembered, after, as having died well, even if he made more mistakes than it was possible to count while still living.

But this, right here—Rey kissing him, loving him—as he lies dying is like nothing Ben ever dared dream of. Her touch sets fire to his veins, makes him feel innocent and young and _vital_ in a way he never did even when he actually was a young man and still untouched by darkness. The sounds of battle and the throbbing air and Rey’s beautiful, unforgettable face drown out the pain and suffuse all his senses with a strange, impossible sort of joy.

Eventually—too soon; _far_ too soon—she pulls back. “I’ll go get help,” she murmurs against his lips. Her sweet, guileless eyes. The beautiful way the corners of her lips turn up in a half smile when she thinks he doesn’t see.

She turns to leave.

_No._

Ben shakes his head. He opens his eyes.

“No, _”_ he insists aloud, finally finding his voice. “ _No_ ,” he says again. Stronger this time.

He grabs her wrist in his right hand.

The longer they are together, here, like this, the better he feels. Her hand on his hand. Her lips on his cheek. It’s…. doing something to him, somehow. Making him whole.

He calls upon the Force, and it answers him.

He pulls her into his arms, crushing her body to his like a lifeline.

“Stay with me,” he begs her, his voice a hoarse whisper. “Please.”

 

v.

Ben is kissing her.

Rey still doesn’t fully understand how the Force works, doesn’t understand how some people can wield it and others cannot, how it can let some people grow powerful and strong while it allows others to wither and die.

But this—

 _This_ —

Ben is sitting up now, somehow. She doesn’t know how. They’ve propped him up against a sheer rock wall, and he leans back against it as she leans into him. One minute he was dying, and the next he was kissing her, and kissing her, and _kissing_ her, and now his kisses grow hungrier, more insistent, and she responds in kind, winding her arms around his neck as she opens her mouth to his.

After what might be a minute, or an hour, Ben pulls back. He’s Ben again, of course. _Kylo Ren_ is gone. Rey knows this like she knows the back of her hand, even though he still has not said a single word about his transformation.

Ben’s eyes are wide, disbelieving, as they stare into hers. He looks at least as stunned by what is happening as she feels.

“I don’t understand,” Rey says, blinking at him. The fires of Mustafar rage all around them. So does the battle. She can’t hear them anymore. “How...”

He pulls her to him again, and now Rey can feel how the Force flows through him, helping his heart to beat and his lungs to breathe. It is healing his wounds. Restoring his life. Ben’s strength is returning to him slowly, bit by bit, more and more with each passing second.

And although Rey has learned so much about the ways of the Force over the past several months, she has no words for what is happening now.

“I don’t know,” he admits, dazed. His eyes are clearer, brighter. His posture straightens. “I don’t know.”

“But, _how_ —”

He whimpers, and cuts off the rest of her question with another bruising kiss.

They stay like that, hidden in each others’ arms, until night falls and the battle ends at last.

 

vi.

Rey pilots the Falcon during their escape from Mustafar while Ben sits mutely beside her as co-pilot.

Before taking off, she’d dug up an old, warm blanket from somewhere in the inner bowels of the ship. He tugs it more closely around his shoulders as she makes the jump to hyperspace.

The jump is incredibly smooth. Small surprise, given how talented a pilot she is. And yet it’s more than a little jarring, to him, that it should go so easily, given all his childhood memories of this ship and his father’s many mishaps.  

_His father._

Ben shakes his head. Closes his eyes.

He’d spent most of his life running from and despising this ship. And now, it is taking them both to safety. To their new home.

The irony of that is not lost on him.

“How long until we are there?”

Rey’s question cuts into Ben’s quiet musings. He turns to look at her, and is surprised to find she is already looking back at him, her head turned towards him, eyes blazing with the light of the reflected stars.

By way of response he smiles at her, and pulls her onto his lap.

“I don’t quite remember, exactly,” he admits, quietly, into her hair. “But... not long.”

They don’t talk about what happened on Mustafar. About his injuries, or his brush with death. About how he is here, holding her, escaping with her, and not dead like he should be, for reasons neither of them fully understand.

He just holds her, and rocks her a little in the cramped cockpit, her head nestled beneath his chin, her breath on his throat.

When she lifts her chin to kiss him again, he smiles, joyful, tearful, against her lips.

There will be plenty of time for talking when they get home.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on twitter at [jeenonamit](https://twitter.com/jeenonamit/)!  
> Or on tumblr, also at [jeenonamit](https://jeenonamit.tumblr.com/).


End file.
